Posts Tagged ‘Tom Hanks’

Everyyear, I struggle with the relatively arbitrary process of ranking movies, so this year I’ve decided to do something a little different. Instead of a traditional Top Ten list, I’m grouping two thematically connected films together for each place on the list, resulting in a hopefully more interesting Top 20 list. I’ve also included a more traditional Top Ten below that, for all you “too long, didn’t read” folks. One final note before we get to the list: it should tell you a lot about my credibility as a film critic that I liked Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa more than most of the Academy Award Best Picture nominees for 2013.

10. THE WICKER MAN: FINAL CUT / JURASSIC PARK 3-D – BEST RE-RELEASES. Obviously, this category doesn’t really count, as both of these films were originally released decades ago, but I can’t deny that each of them provided one of the most enjoyable experiences I had in a movie theater in 2013. This new cut of the original 1973 classic The Wicker Man adds some nuance and more musical numbers to an already great film. Most crucially, it opens with a scene of Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) praying in church, emphasizing his piousness from the very start, which enriches the events to follow. Jurassic Park, on the other hand, is quite simply my favorite movie (it has the most dinosaurs in it – I rest my case), and seeing it on a big screen again, in 3-D no less, made me fall in love with it all over again. Read More

Last month, marketwire.com covered the story of a $5 million dollar series B financing deal led by three private investors for the web-based production management system known as “scenechronize.” Scenechronize is the only system of its kind currently in use, and it is already streamlining the production process of numerous films and television series by eliminating the costly and wasteful practices employed in the industry up until now. Scenechronize provides automatic distribution of script changes, sides, call sheets, prep memos, location maps and other information previously relayed through phone calls, emails, memos and other forms of written communication in a time-consuming, inefficient process susceptible to mistakes. According to the San Francisco-based company’s CEO, Hunter Hancock, “scenechronize expedites and streamlines communications for the entire production, saving wasted time, significant amounts of money, and lots and lots of trees.” Read More

The question of the year in the movie industry: Who will win the Best Picture award? Who will take another Academy Award home as winner and who will just spend the night applauding others? As no one knows for sure yet, let’s take a look at the list of the Best Picture Nominees and try to come up with some system to make predictions.